“God is Love”

Written by Zhey Chua |Posted on May 22, 2008 | Comments

God is Love.
Sadly, this, too, is an overused and often misused phrase. A believer surely understands what I am saying here, but for the benefit of those swift to conclude such, I would like to explain the misconception behind the famous phrase and Bible verse by taking you along with me in my reading of Dr. John MacArthur’s book entitled “The Love of God”.

One of the many attributes of God that man underestimates greatly is His omnipotence. We often forget that God is so powerful that He is capable of feeling wrath and love at the same time. In fact, John MacArthur explains that these two opposite emotions are in no way comparable to the principle of yin and yang because God’s love and wrath are parallel to each other.

On the first chapter of the book, MacArthur dwells on God’s love for the world. Of course, by saying “world”, this would have to include those who inhabit the earth.
Now there are two kinds of man that co-habit the earth, the believer and the unbeliever. Many times, the unbeliever makes the mistake of assuming that because God is love, he is free to do as he pleases (and commit sin) since “God will forgive because He is a God of love” anyway. Well, while it is true that God loves even those who do not believe in the truth of His words, no one can however negate the fact that He is also wrathful at the same time to those to whom the truth has already been revealed yet still refuse to accept and believe.

I first opened this book two weeks ago, I miss on some days because I prioritze my Bible reading but when I hear or stumble upon a verse from the Scripture that describe God’s wrath, I can’t help but be reminded of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards, according to the book, delivered his sermon in Enfield, Connecticut in July 8, 1741 in a monotonous and gentle manner, as he always did, but the vivid picture his words painted evoked deep emotions to those who attended the church that Sunday. To quote from this great sermon, Edwards said:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince: and yet ‘tis nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment: ‘tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep: and there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up: there is no other reason to be given why you han’t gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship: yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you don’t this very moment drop down into hell.
O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: ‘tis a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the damned in hell: you hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

In MacArthur’s book, it was written that when Edwards finished with his sermon, many church-goers were greatly reduced to tears, a good number of people even held tightly on the church’s posts and railings in fear.

Perhaps, this is the picture that many of our churches should paint today when this attribute of God is being presented, if ever it is presented.

Indeed, we have become a very complacent generation, we live day to day mindful of our condition as sinners and yet, we are so unmindful of the fact that we are offending God’s holiness. I take that back, we are mindful actually, but we are so blinded by the knowledge that God is love that we have already transgressed into assuming that this love is also without wrath.
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(To be continued…)

Note: Download Jonathan Edwards’ timeless sermon, Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God now.

You can also check other downloadable copies of great Christian sermons by clicking here…